202504051617 Status: #idea Tags: #institutions #government #business #politics # Classifying empires You can classify emperors by whether they are centralized or decentralized, and whether they are expanding or contracting. This creates a 2x2 grid, where each grid cell represents a type of empire that we can analyze. These are: 1. **Centralized + expanding** - these empires have strong central authorities that are frequently pushing to acquire outside resources and empires. In this setup, there is a very tight coordination between high players and mid players, as the best strategy for mid players to gain power and resources is to stay near the central authority and execute his commands well. This will lead to sharing in the spoils of the expanding empire. An example of this is the Macedonian Empire during Alexander's conquests. Alexander was so effective and expanding the empire so quickly that his generals' best bet to gain power and influence was to stay with Alexander and be rewarded for conquests 2. **Decentralized + expanding** - in this case, the empire is acquiring outside resources, but has a weak central authority. As a result, mid players will go out and acquire resources according to their own goals and objectives. Empires in this mode will typically be expanding in several directions at once, rather than having the smooth, concentrated expansion of a centralized expanding empire. An example here is the British Empire, where frequently private citizens, not under the direction of the government, would be the ones to make territorial gains and acquire new colonial possessions. 3. **Centralized + contracting** - in this type of empire, mid players can only gain resources at the expense of high players or other mid players. As a result, high players view competent and effective mid players as a threat rather than as an asset. This leads to punishment and disincentives being used more commonly than rewards and incentives in high-mid relationships. Empires in this mode frequently don't break into large chunks as they collapse since the central authority is still strong - they typically lose bits of territory until they collapse all at once. The late Western Roman Empire is a great example of this. 4. **Decentralized + contracting** - in this setup, the empire is contracting and the central authority is not strong enough to align the mid players. As a result, the empire breaks up into large competing factions. The Warring States period in China is a great example of this ## Related Ideas - [[Empires are fractal]] - [[High power players in an empire cooperate when there are opportunities for expansion]] - [[Power in an empire is determined by control of the central sub-empire]] - [[The British Empire was built in a decentralized way]] - [[One of the primary roles of a ruler or leader is to shape incentives]] --- # References [[Great Founder Theory]]